Japan Flora: Rhizomes ascending to creeping; stems 1-1.5 m. long, stout, purplish, slighdy cobwebby; lower cauline leaves long-petio- late, ovate-oblong or ovate, sometimes broadly ovate, 15-35 cm. long, acute, mucronate, deeply cordate at base, incised mucronate-toothed, white or sometimes reddish woolly-tomen­tose beneath, the upper leaves smaller, short-petiolate or ses­sile, ovate, cordate to rounded at base; heads nodding; involu­cres campanulate-globose, about 3 cm. long, 3.5-4.5 cm. wide, dark purple; bracts many-seriate, acuminate, spine-tipped, the outer gradually smaller, the median lincar-hnceolate, 1.5-2 mm. wide, the inner erect, linear; corollas purplish; achenes about 6 mm. long, 3 mm. wide; pappus-bristles brownish, unequal in length, about 16 mm. long.  Sept.-Oct.

Hokkaido (sw. distr.), Honshu (ccntr. and n. distr.)

var. giganteus Kitam. Heads larger; pappus bristles to 21 mm. long. Honshu (centr. distr.).